1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical recording medium, a recording and/or reproducing apparatus, and a recording and/or reproducing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
To manage a defect on a recordable disc operating according to a digital versatile disc (DVD) standard, a slipping replacement method is used when the defect occurs while initializing a disc, and a defect sector location replaced by slipping replacement is recorded in a primary defect list (PDL) of a defect managing area of the disc without allocating it a logical sector number. Also, in a linear replacement method, a defect is replaced with a normal block in a spare area in units of error correcting code blocks of an area where an error occurred when the defect occurs while using the disc and a defect block location is recorded in a secondary defect list (SDL).
Such a spare area can be allocated when initializing the disc and additional spare areas may be allocated while using the disc.
Defect management is performed to improve reliability of reproduction of user data recorded on a disc. That is, when a defect has occurred or it is determined that there is a high possibility of an occurrence of a defect while recording or reproducing the disc, the defect is replaced with the spare area to improve reliability of the reproduction.
A defect list entry used in the linear replacement method is typically divided into status information, a physical address of a defect block, and a physical address of a replacement block.
The status information includes status information of a defect block with a replacement block, and status information of a defect block without a replacement block.
The physical address of the defect block is limited to an address of a user data area within a disc so that it can be easily checked in a reproducing process. That is, a host can find data recorded within the user data area of the disc using a file system recorded on the disc, and with this as a basis, the host can reproduce the user data recorded on the disc. When the host tries to find a file system recorded on a disc or tries to reproduce user data, it sends a request to reproduce data using a logic address to a drive system. Then the drive system reproduces data in the physical address corresponding to the logic address and transmits it to the host. Here, if a defect block exists in the physical address corresponding to the logical address, the drive system will reproduce a replacement block as a replacement for the defect block from a defect list entry within a defect list. Accordingly, as the defect management is used for improving reproducing reliability of the user data recorded within the user data area, the physical address of the defect block of the defect list entry may be limited to the address of the user data area of the disc.
Accordingly, it is not preferable that a defect list entry in blocks within the enlarged or newly allocated spare area be left untouched without any management. This is because if the defect list entry on blocks within the newly allocated or enlarged spare area is left as is without any changes, the defect list entry gets an address of the spare area and not an address of the user data area.
In addition, in a medium where defects are managed by indicating whether each block within a spare area can be used as a replacement in a defect list entry, it is not preferable that the defect list entry within the further enlarged or newly allocated spare area be left unchanged. Furthermore, leaving the defect list entry as is causes confusion when a drive system reads the defect list, thus lowering the performance of the drive system.